Medical error: a girl dies a year after ingesting a battery

At the age when many children put everything into their mouths, parental vigilance must be at all times. They generally fear the wrong way and suffocation, but a tragedy in Isère reminds us that these are not the only dangers to which the little ones are exposed.

Just before celebrating her third birthday, Faustine, a little girl from Pont-de-Chéruy died. A year earlier, she swallowed a lithium battery that attacked her digestive tract. After months of treatment, and despite a remission that allowed her to return home, she ultimately did not survive, reports Dauphine Libere.

Misdiagnosis

On July 11, 2016, her parents rushed her to Bron hospital, in the Lyon suburbs, because she was in respiratory distress. The Samu, contacted by telephone, then the nursing staff of the hospital, think of an infection. “As soon as he was admitted, an x-ray was performed,” explains the child’s father. The intern told us that Faustine was suffering from bronchitis and that physiotherapy sessions should remedy this”.

Only, two days later, Faustine has difficulty breathing again. The parents return to the hospital, where the x-ray performed during the first visit intrigues the pediatrician on duty. She wonders if the little girl has swallowed something. By performing a second X-ray, she realizes that the child has in fact swallowed a flat, round battery, a lithium battery.

Faustine’s life is then at stake. She is plunged into an artificial coma, and a fistula is detected. The saliva attacked the battery, the lithium spilled out, and there’s now a three-inch hole between his trachea and his esophagus. The battery is removed urgently, by endoscopy.

One year of care

This is only the beginning of the ordeal for the family. To replace his destroyed esophagus, the doctors fit a prosthesis, and multiple complications appear. In all, in one year, Faustine will undergo 27 operations.

At the beginning of July, when her condition seemed to improve, the parents and the doctors decided to take her home. Parents, trained to use medical devices, can support her. She returns on July 13. But two days later, she dies suddenly. “She started coughing up blood. She left in 10 seconds…”, say the parents.

They decided to start legal proceedings to understand how the nursing staff could miss the battery, and to prevent other tragedies.